Waymart was staring at Leslie with amazed eyes and a lower jaw that slightly sagged. He held his pipe in front of his mouth surprised in the act of adjusting it between his lips. Sandy, rising, came blithely forward, and, in passing Waymart, stumbled and jostled against him. Waymart instantly recovered his lost poise. Lowering his pipe he slouched along behind Sandy and shook hands with Wilson’s partner. Wilson himself was over beside Weimer’s bunk telling at the top of his voice that he had come to a rock wall in his tunnel, and on the other side there must, without fail, be either a pocket of free gold or a lead that would make the claims among the most valuable in the Shoshones. To this optimistic talk Leslie did not listen with the same absorbing interest he had shown at Sagehen Roost, Ross noticed.
In fact, a week of loneliness, coarse food and hard work had wilted Leslie Jones both physically and mentally. Abject weariness seemed to have robbed him of a part of his absorbing self-esteem. Furthermore, he appeared to Ross to be troubled as well as homesick. He looked at Sandy and Waymart unrecognizingly and sat down on a bench beneath the candle by the stove.
"We shall stay," Ross heard Wishing tell the McKenzies, "till the pass over Crosby threatens. Then we’ll hike it below to the coal claims."
"Didn’t know you had any," interrupted Sandy. "Where are they?"
"Up Wood River, only about a mile or such a matter from Camp. Fine outcroppin’ of coal. Best in the country. When the Burlington gits here they’ve got t’ have coal and I says to myself, ’There’s where you come up on top, Wishin’, you’ll have th’ coal t’ sell ’em,’ me and my pard now," he added with a glance at Jones.
The boy looked at him vaguely, as though he had not heard, and nodded. He sat with one knee thrown over the other, his back pressed against the side logs, his eyes so heavy that the lids kept drooping despite his efforts to keep awake. His hands were blistered, and his new corduroy suit dirty and torn. The air of newness which had characterized him when Ross first met him was gone. His hair had lengthened, and his cheeks revealed hollows. He said but little, being engaged in the absorbing effort to keep awake. Besides, Sandy and Wilson gave no one else a chance to talk. Waymart smoked stolidly staring at the candle above Leslie.
Ross, sitting with his elbows on the table, ceased to struggle against weariness, and, with his head on his arms, fell asleep. He awakened just in time to see his callers depart, whereupon he threw himself, dressed, in his bunk and slept until late the next morning.
During the next few weeks, all days seemed alike to Ross except Sunday. Early each Sunday morning he struck the trail for Miners’ Camp, the post-office, and Steele’s shack. At first he crept shudderingly over that quarter mile around the shoulder of Crosby. But soon his head lost every sense of giddiness, and his legs regained their accustomed strength, and his heart ceased to beat agitatedly at sight of the thousand-feet fall.
On the third Sunday he came into Steele’s shack with a brighter face than he had worn before.